My Mrs. Brown (Norwich)

My Mrs. Brown 
William Norwich, 2016
Simon & Schuster
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781442386075


Summary
From William Norwich, the well-known fashion writer and editor, an unforgettable novel about a woman with a secret who travels to New York City on a determined quest to buy a special dress that represents everything she wants to say about that secret…and herself.

Sometimes a dress isn’t just a dress.

Emilia Brown is a woman of a certain age. She has spent a frugal, useful, and wholly restrained life in Ashville, a small town in Rhode Island.

Overlooked especially by the industries of fashion and media, Mrs. Brown is one of today’s silent generations of women whose quiet no-frills existences would make them seem invisible.

She is a genteel woman who has known her share of personal sorrows and quietly carried on, who makes a modest living cleaning and running errands at the local beauty parlor, who delights in evening chats with her much younger neighbor, twenty-three-year-old Alice Danvers.

When the grand dame of Ashville passes away, Mrs. Brown is called upon to inventory her estate and comes across a dress that changes everything. This isn’t a Cinderella confection; it’s a simple yet exquisitely tailored Oscar de la Renta sheath and jacket—a suit that Mrs. Brown realizes, with startling clarity, will say everything she has ever wished to convey.

She must have it.

And so Mrs. Brown begins her odyssey to purchase the dress. For not only is the owning of the Oscar de la Renta a must, the intimidating trip to purchase it on Madison Avenue is essential as well. If the dress is to give Mrs. Brown a voice, then she must prepare by making the daunting journey—both to the emerald city and within herself.

Timeless, poignant, and appealing, My Mrs. Brown is a novel for every mother in the world, every woman who ever wanted the perfect dress, and every child who wanted to give it to her. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1955-56
• Where—Norwich, Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., Hampshire College; M.F.A., Columbia University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York


William Norwich is a writer, editor, and video and television reporter. He is the author of the novels My Mrs. Brown (2016) and Learning to Drive (1996), as well as the children’s book Molly and the Magic Dress (2006).

Norwich was born William Goldberg in Norwich, Connecticut. He changed his name after an article proposal he submitted to a magazine was rejected. He resubmitted it, this time under the WASPy sounding nom de plume, William Norwich, and it was accepted. "So," he said, "we changed our name. I became William Norwich from Goldberg, Connecticut."

Norwich earned his Bachelor's from Hampshire College and after graduation briefly taught grade school. He then enrolled at Columbia University, earning an MFA. Although he wanted to be a poet, he ended up working in New York City—first in public relations, then writing profiles for Earl Blackwell's Celebrity Register, and eventually, in 1985, as a protege to famed celebrity columnist Suzy Smith at the Daily News.

Over the years, he has written and edited for the New York Times Magazine, Vogue, Town & Country, Architectural Digest, and New York magazine. He is currently the editor for fashion and interior design at Phaidon Press. (Adapted from New York magazine and from the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Modest, mannerly, and well-behaved Mrs. Emilia Brown is a widow of a certain age. She lives in small town Rhode Island, owns her own home and rents out half of it. She also works as the cleaner at a beauty shop and tends to dress in shades of brown and gray. How then, does this quiet soul end up zooming around Manhattan in a red Mercedes convertible? Don’t worry, she is not driving the car! She has never been to the city before and wouldn’t know how to cope with the traffic. But she is there on a mission.  READ MORE.
Keddy Ann Outlaw - LitLovers


Meet a delightfully old-fashioned heroine in My Mrs. Brown…Even if you find Mrs. Brown anachronistic, with a gentle conservatism of an age long-gone, you come to like and respect her. Then, you come to love her…Goodness really is its own reward, says Norwich’s gentle-hearted book. Better yet, sometimes goodness is rewarded.
BookPage


An unassuming yet magnetic older woman becomes possessed by the notion of acquiring an Oscar de la Renta dress.... What remains a mystery until the very end of the novel is the occasion for which she needs such a thing.... Like its main character, appealing, sweet, old-fashioned—and, at heart, very sad.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add the publisher's questions if and when they're available. In the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to kick off a discussion for My Mrs. Brown...then take off on your own:

1. In what ways would you say Mrs. Brown is an anachronism in today's world? Do you know anyone like her?

2. In what way can this book be described as a modern fable? Or...a fairy tale (minus the fairies)?

3. What is it about the black dress that makes Mrs. Brown "have to have it"? Have you ever encountered something—a dress or other object—that completely captivated you?

4. Did you figure out (or suspect) the reason Emilia desires the dress? Or were you surprised?

5. Of all the kind souls who aid Mrs. Brown in her quest, who is your favorite and why? Who is the most important in helping her?

6. Here is what author William Norwich says he wants his take away to be for My Mrs. Brown:

...that being an American grown-up is actually an honorable thing, that balance is OK, that loneliness is inevitable and that underneath the superficial there is a life for all people. And it’s not going to be what you see or what they say. Quiet people are the ones you want to love and know. Quietude is good after all the noise we’ve gone through culturally.

Do you think Norwich succeeds in what he wants his readers to come away with?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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